Don MacKenzie – Longtime Community Service Advocate

Category: Real Estate

A nonprofit research and educational organization based in Washington, DC, the Urban Land Institute is a multidisciplinary real estate forum where industry leaders and policy makers can share their ideas. ULI sponsors a broad range of real estate research in the United States and beyond, including a number of housing research initiatives.

Pointing to housing as the cornerstone of vibrant and sustainable communities, ULI sponsors research into the various issues surrounding housing in the United States today. ULI continues to focus on affordable and workforce housing, as well as the impact of prevailing demographic trends on housing demand in the future. In particular, ULI performs in-depth analyses of factors such as immigration patterns, generational preferences in housing locations, and the growing disparity between rental housing and home ownership.

Other areas of research at the Urban Land Institute include climate and energy, infrastructure and transit, and leadership. To learn more about ongoing ULI research, visit the official website at http://www.uli.org.

Real estate has become an increasingly popular investment vehicle in the last few decades. While many individuals think of real estate investments in terms of buying and then renting a property, several other investment avenues exist.

Purchasing a property to rent is the most basic form of investment, but individuals who want to avoid the issues involved with managing the property can turn to real estate investment groups. Similar to a mutual fund for rental properties, this group includes investors who own one or more units in a larger building or block. All properties fall under the management of a company operating the investment group.

Another option for real estate investors is the real estate investment trust (REIT), a company that pools the money of investors to buy a portfolio of properties. Investors buy and sell stock in REITs on major exchanges. This provides them with liquidity not available in other forms of real estate investing.

Other investors may also look into flipping property, which involves the purchase of a property for the express purpose of reselling it in the near future for a profit. These investors look for undervalued properties or those located in a particularly hot market. This strategy can work well, but generally requires ideal market timing and can leave investors with outsized losses when the market turns as it did in 2007-8.